Sam nodded, eyeing the Cold Stone Creamery to our right as we followed Drea toward the food court. “Maybe I should get some dessert…” She trailed off.
“There!” I said, pointing to Drea and grabbing Sam by the arm.
I felt my heart leap into my throat as I watched Drea sit down at a table near the Panda Express, where a guy in a black wool beanie cap was eating chow mein. She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the lips before pulling something from her back pocket and sliding it across the table.
I sucked in a breath. Our cash.
“Holy fudge, that’s the guy!” Sam whispered in my ear.
“Let’s go get him.”
We quickly converged on the table, and as we approached, I saw Drea look up, first shock, then anger registering on her face.
“What are you two doing here?” she asked, narrowing heavily lined eyes until there was nothing but mascara showing.
“Catching you red-handed,” Sam said, pointing at the guy with her.
He looked up, and I recognized him from school. I didn’t know his name, but I’d seen him in the halls. He had dark eyes, dark longish hair, and a perpetual summer tan. He was wearing a green T-shirt and jeans, his long legs stretched out in front of him under the table to end in a pair of black skate shoes that looked well worn in. He looked from me to Sam.
“Caught who doing what?” he asked, blinking innocently.
“Caught Drea bringing you the cash for the cheats we purchased. From you,” Sam said, still pointing a finger at the guy.
He looked from Sam to me. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come off it, Nicky,” Sam said, plopping herself into an empty seat across from the guy. Apparently she did recognize him.
“Nicky?” I asked, sitting down, too.
Sam turned to me. “This is Nicky Williams. He’s in my AP English class. And,” she said, giving him a pointed look, “he was in Mr. Tipkins’s precalculus class last year, too.”
Nicky shrugged. “A lot of people have had Tipkins.”
“A lot of people didn’t just send their flunkey to pick up cash from the kids’ playland.”
“Hey!” Drea protested. “I’ll have you know I’m not flunking any subjects this semester.”
I rolled my eyes.
Nicky, on the other hand, ignored his girlfriend’s lack of IQ. His eyes went from Sam to me again. “You’re the girl who found Sydney, right?”
“Yes. I’m doing a story for the school paper on her death.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. That really sucked.”
“Sucks losing
Nicky grinned and crossed his arms over his chest. “Customers? Gosh, I’m sorry. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The mock innocence thing was getting old. I grabbed Sam’s phone from her pocket and dialed the number of our seller.
Immediately, the Black Eyed Peas starting singing from Nicky’s pocket.
Nicky bit the inside of his cheek, not bothering to pull his phone out as I shot him a pointed look.
“Okay, fine,” he conceded. “Look, you wanna know about Sydney? I’ll talk. Off the record,” he added.
As much as I didn’t like the sound of that, I nodded. Better than no talk at all.
“Fine. Off the record.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You are the guy we texted last night?” Sam asked.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“And you’re selling cheats to people at school?”
Again with the nod.
“Did you sell the cheats to Sydney Sanders?”
He paused this time before answering. “She was in a jam. I helped her out.”
“For a fee.”
“A guy’s gotta eat, ya know?” he said, gesturing to the pile of chow mein in front of him.
“Where did you get the answers?”
“I have a source.”
“What kind of source?” Sam asked.
“The kind I’m not gonna talk about. Next question,” he said, nodding my way.
“Fine,” I said, switching gears. “How many people at Herbert Hoover High are involved in this?” I asked.
“How many have I sold to?” he asked. “Maybe a dozen this semester.”
Sam whistled low. “That’s it. I’m never getting into Stanford now.”
“And none of those people know who you are? It’s all been anonymous?” I asked, ignoring her.
“Yep.”
“Did Sydney know who you were?”
Nicky shook his head. “No. No one did.”
“Is it possible she found out about your ‘source’?” I asked.
Nicky narrowed his eyes at me. “Why do you ask?”
Unlike Drea, I could tell he was no dummy. So, with little left to lose, I leveled with him.
“Sydney was going to tell me something important the day she died.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. She died before she could tell me. But I assume it had something to do with where she got the cheats.”
Nicky shook his head. “Look, if it did, it had nothing to do with me. Sydney dropped the cash. I dropped the drive with the answers. That’s it. She was clueless. Trust me.”
Despite his suggestion, that wasn’t something I was totally prepared to do yet.
“Where were you the afternoon that Sydney died?” I asked instead.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you have an alibi?”
“Whoa!” Nicky put both hands out in a defensive gesture. “Sydney committed suicide, right? What do I need an alibi for?”
“We don’t think it was suicide. We think it was homicide.”
Sam nodded in agreement beside me. “Twittercide, to be exact.”
“Well, it wasn’t me,” Nicky said defiantly.
“Then where were you?”
“Home.”
“On a school day?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
“I was sick. I had a cold.”
“Can anyone vouch for that?” I asked.
“Drea can,” Nicky said, nodding across the table at the girl who’d been conspicuously silent during our exchange. “She stopped by before school to check on me.”
“Before school,” I said, honing in on the word. “So, when Sydney died after school you were alone.”
Nicky bit his lip. “I guess. So what?”
“So maybe you thought Sydney knew too much and needed to be shut up before she blew the whistle on your whole operation,” Sam offered.
He shook his head. “No way. Like I said, Sydney didn’t know who she was buying the cheats from.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “Because it wasn’t all that hard for us to find out.”
He paused, looking from me to Sam, letting the truth of that sink in. “Anyway, even if she did know, she wouldn’t tell.”
